Redoing the Closet - Part I

I've been avoiding the inevitable.  I moved my three little ones into the same room (per their request) a while ago, but left their clothes in their old rooms.  It really hasn't been a big deal for me at all.  I decided that I wanted to go ahead and start redoing my hubby's office (which was E.'s old room) so what has to go are all the kids belongings.  I contemplate swapping his office with the guest bedroom because of the space arrangement, but that is another post.

Let's get back to the kiddos.  The closet that goes with their room is the "play" closet since their room used to be the play room.  It is jammed packed with board games and toys.  I couldn't even open the door.  Here's a pic after I cleared out the toys that were on the floor.  It was piled high I tell you.

The other side of the closet is just as bad.  I know what you are thinking.  That's a lot of toys.  Everything is mixed in this closet.  We still had infant toys in this closet.  It was time to purge.

Purging was difficult as this little guy kept exploring every toy.

Round one.  I removed all these things off the floor (yes, just the floor of the closet).

Many many hours later, I got here.   It took so long because I was organizing as I was purging.  I, horribly enough, kept every single Thomas the train box so I was finding all the correct tracks and pieces to complete each set and place them back.  With a dozen sets, it took some time, but since that was going to storage, I'd rather it be done right.

I cleared out the entire right side of the closet.

All that really remains are the board games.  The boxes on the floor will eventually be donated.  I just ran out of hall way space.   My hopes for the closet is to knock down the shelves on the right and install rods to hang the boys' clothes on.  It's a big closet, but it doesn't work for us functionally right now. 

For someone who is a pack rat, I did great.  I gave my sister an entire SUV full of toys (yes, it filled the entire back seat and trunk.  I have a foyer filled with toys to be donated.  I normally would sell the toys on craigslist, but not finding any extra time lately, I've decided to just donate them.  The rest will be put into storage.  The board games you see in the picture, I hope to be able to relocate to another hall-way closet, but that would mean, I would have to clean that one too.  After cleaning by myself for the entire day, I'm exhausted.  Cleaning another closet will just have to wait.